


XII

by FranklyFrazzled



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FranklyFrazzled/pseuds/FranklyFrazzled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into two lives if only they had gone a bit different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some interview Xabi did where he said he was almost in the movie Vacas by Julio Mendem (playing a red headed Basque boy) but his mom decided against letting him do it. Kind of got me thinking about that proverbial butterfly and how different certain things would be if something early on in their lives had been tweaked. But because romance is fun(?) how certain things would remain exactly the same.

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?  
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.  
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,  
And went with half my life about my ways.

AE Housman- XII

 

You liked the way his name sounded on a Sunday afternoon the first time you heard it. The way it seemed to just sit there, hanging languidly in the air as if gravity had no effect on it, like it was mightier than the proven laws of science. Your first impression wasn’t a firm handshake or a carefully crafted English greeting-- It was hearing his name and getting the profound feeling that if two syllables could ignite such longing within the depth of your stomach- the rest of him must be something grand as well.  
  
Looking back, you realize that it might not have even been him that had caused the sudden whirling anticipation combined with a combative sedative feeling in your heart on that fateful Sunday evening. It may have just been you: your longing for change, something different, something new. Living in the countryside had its downfalls, you admitted to him once you’d finally met and he became everything that his name had promised he would be. It could be boring, mundane, and impervious to change- good or bad. The idea of him, an outsider coming to lay siege on your quiet village-town with his foreign name and ideas awakened a curiosity in you that you’d never been allowed to reveal existed before.  
  
Yes, in the end it was you. You were the one that wanted to be different. You wanted to seize something for yourself, something exciting and apart from anything you or anyone around you had ever known. You attached these feelings to him because he was the only person who could live up to your expectations of glamor and passion. He was a stranger of the strangest variety. He could have been anyone and in the end it wouldn’t have mattered to you one bit. You would have still fallen irreversibly and blindly in love.  
  
It’s hard to deter you once you have your mind set to something.  
  
It’s not romantic, you realize, to think like that. It’s discrediting to him to say that. Discrediting to your own feelings and what you two shared. But you feel like it was the truth. You’d fallen in love with him the very first time you heard his name: he could have been anyone or done anything. He could have been ugly and cruel, it wouldn’t have mattered. You were a small town boy and it was the idea of what lay beyond the familiar borders of home that called to you and made you care for him.  
  
He knew this, of course. He knew everything about you and seemingly always had. He knew that you were his from the first moment he caught you staring at the welcome party that had been thrown in his honor. The entire town had shown up. You remember scoffing at the decorations and the ridiculousness of your neighbors in thinking that a little country party could impress someone like him. They called you bitter, paid you no mind, and smiled knowingly behind their plastic cups when you tried to feign indifference upon his arrival. In small towns, there are no secrets- only things that aren’t said out loud.  
  
He was younger than you, something that made you oddly jealous in a way. It upset you that you had more years on him and yet less to show for it. You had been to fewer places, done fewer things. Loving him had always been partly wanting to be him. He, of course, knew that too.  
  
You give him great credit- that Xabi gave you a chance despite it all. He saw right through you from day one and yet he still let it all unfold. A part of you wondered if someone had mentioned your name to him before he arrived and it had caused some kind of swelling in his gut and imagination as well. But that was a little more than ridiculous because why would anyone mention you as a top reason of moving into obscurity to a man (boy) as important as him? You were a nobody and he was bigger than the moon.  
  
You had never been big on going to the movies. Whenever you went, it was always some ploy to get a local boy or girl in the dark with you where no one would be paying attention to roaming hands and mouths. So you never really heard of Xabi properly until he had rented the house next to yours and the entire town was buzzing to have a real life movie star in their midst.  
  
You knew his face though. Meeting him was like being introduced to someone you felt you knew from somewhere else but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. It was a beautiful face, one that made the big money but that also had a normal feel to it. You felt that he could easily slip into a crowd and be lost amongst the sea of people if he wanted to, a quality that must be rare for people of his level of attractiveness and fame. He felt like one living contradiction to you before you’d even said a single word to each other.  
  
You don’t know what he saw in you. You were just Steven. You were born in Liverpool, in the middle of the great city. But before you were old enough to remember it, your parents ripped you apart from the city and the countryside has been all you’ve ever known since. You always felt a slight, bitter resentment towards your parents for the move. If you’d grown up as they had, in Liverpool, things would have been different for you, you’re sure of it.  
  
See, because you grew up in the country, a slow and boring life is the only thing you’ve ever known. That’s what made Xabi so exciting to you. He was a movie star. He’d traveled the world and seen things you could never imagine. The world fell open for his every desire and he was loved by the masses. He was everything that you never had chance, in your small town, to be.  
  
If you’d grown up in the city, people like him would have been more commonplace. You would have developed your own accomplishments. You wouldn’t have needed him half as much as you did. You wouldn’t have had to love him until you could pretend you were him. You wouldn’t have had to use him and maybe then, if you still would have fallen in love, it would have been a much kinder and truer sort that he deserved.  
  
You’d been feeling bitter and vulnerable and a little bit drunk one day when you told him how funny it was. Funny that you were the innocent small town boy and he was the big time movie star but in the end it was you that was taking advantage of him and not the other way around. He had looked at you with those deeply concerned eyes and told you to get some sleep. He could never stand it when you said things like that; even when you both knew they were true.  
  
“My life isn’t everything you think it is,” he told you when he was ready to leave. He had his suitcases packed and placed threateningly by the door. You were angry at his decision to leave you even though deep down, in that place where you really do care for him and it’s not some stupid façade, you couldn’t blame him. You’d scoffed and asked him why he was going back to it then, if it wasn’t so much better than what you had here.  
  
You expected him to answer you with something clever and painful, maybe citing the toxicity of your relationship as the reason of his departure. Instead he held your head in his hands and looked you deep in the eyes and surprised you by knowing your own soul better than you did. Although by that point, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise after all.


	2. Chapter 2

When he was six years old, Xabi moved from Barcelona back to the city of his birth. Life was slower there. His father had not yet retired but it was clear for everyone to see that his career was nearing an end and their family life was no longer the exciting whirlwind of football it had once been.

In Tolosa Xabi found himself with a new kind of personal freedom he had never been permitted back in the big city. His mother allowed that he and his brothers run wild during the day as young, growing boys ought to given a safe environment. They spent their days on the run, playing on the beaches, and wreaking havoc upon passing cars on the nearby road. It was a childhood of bliss. There were long summer days and short nights filled with nothing but dreams of the mornings to come.

It was during these summer days of reckless abandon and youthful indiscretion that the event which would shape the rest of his life occurred.

It had been a normal day as any other, the summer of his ninth year. Xabi had been searching La Playa Concha for sea shells and crabs while the game of one-on-one with his older brother ended to a short water break. He hadn’t noticed Julio Medem watching him from the high road above the beach. He remained oblivious to the severity of the situation as the man came down, almost falling down the sandy hill in his haste to meet him.

Xabi remained oblivious as the man introduced himself with a vigorous handshake and wide smile. Continued to be oblivious as the man ushered him into his own family home, Mikel irritated at their heels, and called on his mother. It’s safe to say he continued to be oblivious well into the family talks which followed and the actual production of the film.

He had no interest as a child to be a famous movie star. It had never been something which he had even considered being a possibility. But Julio Medem saw something in him that day, even from a distance, which he was certain he could not make his film without. And soon one film led to another and there it was. He had turned the boy into a well sought after actor before anyone could realize.

No one expected the movie offers to continue coming in. Actors who are wanted as children rarely have their success replicated as they age. Xabi, who had never thought he was an actor, never believed his career would be one which would last. He studied hard, as his mother always insisted he should, preparing himself for life after the silver screen. He never could quite believe that said life would never begin.

The roles and offers kept arriving into his teens. If anything, he was gaining more attention. When he was fifteen, he made his first movie outside Spain and there it was. The world fell in love with him and there would be no going back.

At the age of seventeen he became tired. He knew he should count his blessings and not complain. There were people who would kill for the opportunities that he just happened to stumble upon accidentally. But at the same time, he was young but didn’t feel it.

Kids his age were in the process of making the most important mistakes of their lives. But he had an agent and a mother who kept him perfectly in line. He was like an adult, never getting to go through and experience that tumultuous time known as adolescent. He felt old beyond his years and slightly disgusted that this was so.

In an act of belated teenage rebellion he took a break. He finished his latest film and dropped out of the next. Said he would consider the one that had been lined up afterwards but would make no definite promises. He made secret arrangements for the English countryside- wanting to ensure he could get away from everything and everyone in his life and selfishly do whatever he pleased.

He goes to England to get away from it all. Try something new. Something relaxing. He meets Steven and his stay is more like an emotional hurricane than anything else. But what other way to get over a lost youth than to fall so completely and dangerously in love? When it comes the time to leave, Xabi doesn’t lament over road not taken. He’s had his share of love and heartbreak to last a lifetime.

He goes back to Madrid and the lifestyle not expecting to ever feel for another person ever again.


	3. Chapter 3

Steven moves to London when he’s twenty-five after getting a job as a sports columnist. He’s well aware that this is the city that the infamous Xabi Alonso now calls his home base- it’s what all the tabloids are saying when he skims through the titles on his way to the check-out line at Tesco. He figures he’ll be fine. It’s not like some sports writer for a dying publication is exactly going to be running in the same circles as the hottest Spanish movie star since Penelope Cruz. Doubts the movie star would even remember him and their stint in the countryside anyways.

(He watches all of his new movies. Every single damn one. Even the one that went straight to DVD where Xabi played a poor American haunted by ghosts of his ancestors both literally and figuratively. It’s beyond shit but Xabi looks so happy in the special features commentary trying to explain why he decided to do such a poorly funded film in comparison to his usual projects. (“Everyone needs a career with a few flops, no? Otherwise where is the drama?” he had said and winked at the interviewer- the cheeky git.)

It's not like Steven had been exactly pining for the lover he had lost when they both had been so young. He's lived his life over the last few years. He left the country-side, went to school, got a job that afforded him a rat infested apartment in Croydon, and met a girl. Her name was Alex and she wrote the fashion column at the desk across from his and so far it was casual but what was better than casual with a beautiful woman while living as an independent man in the busy city?

But the busy city ends up being his downfall. Everyone always says if you hang around Piccadilly Circus long enough you'll end up running into just about everyone you know at least once. Only it's never actually the people you want to run into. It's always the ones that lead to the worst exchanges that make you feel like shite a week later just thinking about it. Running into an ex with their new partner. That kid who replaced you at work after you were let go. Running into Xabi fucking Alonso eating some fucking gelato like he wasn't some famous, international movie star and just a regular guy.

And of course Xabi recognized him right away. Didn't even have the decency to pretend he didn't know him, like Steven had hoped he might. Instead he came right up to him and gave him a large hug, breathing him in with a happy smile, accidentally dropping his gelato on the ground in his elated surprise.

“Alright, mate?” Steven asked awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact as much as possible. Wondering why he had decided to come to Piccadilly of all places and cursing his rotten luck. But Xabi pretends not to notice (although he does, always could read Steven like one of his damn scripts) and keeps smiling broadly at him as if he hadn't been the one to leave him on such poor terms five years ago without a single word in-between.

“If you have moved to London without looking me up I will be very upset with you,” he says good naturedly. But Steven can't play along, feels like he's coming apart under the skin more and more every moment he stands before the other man. The other man whose smile seems to finally falter although he does his best to hide it.

“Here, keep in touch,” Xabi says handing him a business card from his wallet and then apologizing for having to run. Steven pretends he doesn't notice how he keeps turning back to look at him as he walks off and disappears into the crowds of people. When he looks down at the card it's personal, not a card for his agent like he would have expected. He doesn't know how to feel.


	4. Chapter 4

When things had been good between them they had been very good. Steven almost doesn't remember what it was like to be twenty years old and running through open fields with the man he loves. But Xabi does. He remembers everything and clings to the memories whenever things in his life become a little rough. Rumors began to spread across movie sets that he was a new age man, meditating between takes. Really he just liked to close his eyes and think about Steven when things got to be a bit much.

He remembers what the sun felt like in the English countryside. Which may be strange considering he's Spanish and nothing can really compare to the way the sun feels overhead in Madrid but it was different. In England the sun may not have been as strong. May not have been as familiar. But it warmed him from the inside out. He would look over at Steven in the dying embers of the day and he would always seem to glow with the golden light behind him. And sometimes Xabi even dared to think that when Steven looked at him, he thought he was glowing too.

They spent a lot of their time in the Gerrard family barn. Steven had converted it into something like an apartment when he had been just a kid and desperate to get away. It was his personal space for years and despite when he wanted to get laid, no one was invited in. Except for Xabi.

They would lay together in the mornings, tangled together in every sense of the word, not speaking but not needing to. There was a peace in that barn that Xabi had yet been able to discover anywhere else in the world. It was there that Steven showed him the most affection. The most love. Sometimes when they were out around town things became difficult. Steven was sullen and moody, withdrawn from him in a way he could never discover a way to bridge. But waking up together Steven would hold his hand and lay kisses on each knuckle like an apology for every hurtful thing he knew he would do in the day to come.

He always knew. The problems Steven faced preceded him. All the anger, all the dissatisfaction with the world. That's how he had found the man, he knew what he was getting into from the beginning. Maybe he thought he could help somehow. Maybe he thought that if loving Steven was so beneficial for him, maybe Steven loving him in return could also help.

But it didn't. Things eventually went to shit and he had to go back to the real world. But he would always treasure what things had been like when they had been good.

Xabi stays true to his word. He never falls in love again. There's nothing worse than the feeling of having reached paradise and then having it snatch away from you by the same person that gave it to you. Sometimes he thinks that he should try again. Find someone who won't break his heart. But maybe the only thing worse than getting hurt is settling when you have experienced something so close to divinity.


	5. Chapter 5

Steven tosses and turns in his sleep every night for the next week with Xabi's card sitting on his bedside table. He tries hiding it in the depths of his desk drawer but the fear of actually losing it ends up being worse than its presence. He can't focus. Can't do much of anything but think about how the other man had looked. (Good.) How he had sounded. (Happy.) The way he had felt, his body pressed chastely against his own. (Like a bad dream that can't be shaken. Familiar but still distant like a foggy memory.)

He breaks down and calls him at three in the morning when his column is due in a few hours and he's nowhere near finished but can't think of anything insightful to say about Man City's new leftback with that damn business card watching him. (Not accusingly but rather patiently. Like it knew he would get around to calling the number printed upon it eventually and that it was content to just sit there until that day should come. Infuriating. Like Xabi himself.)

He reaches his voicemail but doesn't leave a message. The next day when he's at work (his column miraculously turned in on time) Xabi calls back but he's out to lunch and (purposefully) forgets his cell at the office. Around dinner he tries to return the call but has no luck. It seems to go on like this until three days later when Steven is sitting at home with nothing else to occupy his attention and his phone begins to ring.

He thinks about not answering. About continuing their little game of phone tag until the end of time. It's oddly comforting in a way, knowing that someone is always trying to reach you. But in the end he's not enough of a coward to run away forever and he picks up.

“We always did have bad timing.”

“Yes, but we always made the best of it.”


	6. Chapter 6

Xabi woke up to the sound of roosters. He wanted to laugh at how cliché it was, being woken up by an actual rooster while sleeping in a barn. (Although he had to admit a very well put together barn. Steven had spent the majority of his childhood and early teenage years perfecting his safe haven and it showed through every inch of the structure.) But when his eyes opened all he could see was the way the morning sun caught Steven's sleeping form and his breath caught in his throat and laughing was really the last thing on his mind.

All he could think was: This is what happiness is. This has got to be it.

And Steven wakes up, more from the sudden tension of Xabi's body than the noises of morning he had grown accustomed to years ago. He blinks the night away and peers over at his lover with the bluest eyes Xabi has ever seen. Eyes that remind him only of the ocean as the cloudiness leaves them and he awakens fully, leaving them clear and vast like any one of the seven seas.

Steven pushes himself up off the bed, the thin linen sheets falling off his bare torso and falling around his waist, leans forward and kisses him with the most serious expression on his face: frowning slightly before their lips meet as if their lack of close proximity was weighing heavily on his mind. Their bodies become tangled in every sense of the word.

Things are always so sweet when they are just beginning.


	7. Chapter 7

They meet up for drinks. It's a small place near King's Cross, for which Steven is thankful. When he first came to London the underground was a bit overwhelming. Whenever in doubt, he used to always try to get to King's Cross and from there try and navigate to where ever it was he was supposed to be. The surrounding area became something of a safety blanket for him. Whenever he had a shite day, he always ended up in that part of town. Lord knew he could use all the comfort he could get meeting up with Xabi again. 

What surprises him somewhat is that not only is Xabi alone when he gets there but he is early. For whatever reason he had been expecting the man to appear an hour late trailed by some sort of entourage. Instead he was at the bar alone, waiting patiently for Steven to arrive with a pint before him. The sight of him in the dimly lit pub wearing jeans and a simple sweater was so baffling. It shouldn't have been so easy. 

He thinks about running away for a moment- thinking he would probably be well within his right. It was Xabi, after all, that had left him all those years ago. He could turn around now and disappear into the crowded London streets- change his number- avoid every place that sells gelato in the entire city for the rest of his life. And maybe then Xabi would hurt a little and understand what it had been like for him and it would be a life lesson that would stick with him like an unpleasant tremor in his hand every time someone mentioned spending time in the country side. 

But as much as Steven would like to think leaving and standing Xabi up now would be some kind of karmic justice- the truth would be that he would just be running away. Steven could admit to being a lot of things- but a coward was never one of them. So he goes inside, claps a hand on the other man's shoulder in a greeting as he takes the seat beside him, and orders a drink like everything was normal as could be. 

If Xabi could still read the tension in his shoulders like a second language, he does well to not let on.


	8. Chapter 8

It's five in the morning. Xabi can tell by the look in Steven's eyes when he lets him into the house that he hasn't gone to sleep yet. He makes them both a cup of coffee even though he knows Steven prefers to have tea. He figures Steven's been so shit to him lately that he can put up with it for once. They don't really talk, just sit there at his kitchen table in silence, slowing sipping their beverages and contemplating how they were going to get passed the fight that had preceded this particular meeting.

Steven knows he has to apologize. But he's always been a proud man and has never admitted he was wrong easily. He tries to calculate which would feel worse: losing Xabi or saying he was at fault. He wonders if it should be so hard to figure something like that out. Wonders if he was with anyone else from town would be actually be contemplating between the two.

Instead of making a decision, he tries for the middle ground and says, “I think you misunderstood what I said.”

“It is very difficult to misunderstand you shouting how your life is shit and you have nothing in it worth keeping.” Xabi doesn't even bother to look up from his cup.

“I wasn't talking about you,” Steven counters, irritated by the passiveness in the other man's voice.

“I am in your life, no?”

“Fucking hell, it wasn't a personal insult! You just walked into the conversation at the wrong time!” he groaned. Of all the Spanish movie stars to fall in love with, he had to go for the most stubborn. He was sure Javier Bardem would know how to give a guy a break when he was drunk and with his friends, slagging off everything and anything.

“No, I believe you said what you meant. You are always the most truthful after you have had a few drinks. You were not thinking of me when you said those things because you were not thinking of me as part of your life,” Xabi accused, eyes narrowing slightly, finally looking at Steven. “You keep waiting for me to go and leave you alone for good. Why don't you just end things with me if that is what you wish?”

“Can you fucking blame me? God, look at you!” Steven shouted, standing up suddenly. But even his sudden actions could not disturb the other boy. On the outside he looked as calm and poised as ever. What Steven would never know was that on the inside Xabi's heart was beating so fast he was seriously worried that it might just stop in his chest from exhaustion. “You're Xabi fucking Alonso! You came here on a fucking whim and as soon as you realize this place is shit and so am I you'll be out just as fast!”

"I can't spend the rest of my life trying to prove to you that I care for you," Xabi said after a long moment had passed. "But what does it matter when in the end you just don't trust me?"

"You're a bloody good actor, y'know. Maybe if you weren't... maybe I wouldn't be so messed up about you." It was Xabi's place but that didn't stop him from walking out. Steven knew he'd crossed a line but couldn't stop himself from doing it either. He rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. He didn't mean to keep doing these things to fuck it all up but in the end it seemed like he just couldn't help it either. He didn't know how to simply sit back and accept the happiness he'd been given.


End file.
